Gold work and metal work of The Pre-Columbian Cultures

The Pre-Columbian Cultures developed highly sophisticated and beautiful gold work, so much that became pure and simple Gold Art.
In describing the gold working developments of pre Hispanic Colombia, we have deciphered coherent patterns that permit the establishment of a clear relationship between the working of metals and the economic and political organization of the gold working chiefdoms. The earliest gold work is characterized by an emphasis on hammering techniques for pure gold. Great, spectacular pieces were produced, but not in large quantities. Later, complex cacicazgos emphasized smelting techniques, the employment of alloys and - above all - the serial production of cast pieces. Relatively speaking, the objects produced in later eras are less splendid than the enthralling ornaments of pure gold created by hammering. However, this does not indicate the slightest "degeneration" in gold working. To the contrary, it denotes the development of different production strategies, linked to providing larger quantities of objects to a greater number of people.
The most ancient gold working centers in the country are those in the south and southwest regions. There, we find the oldest evidence of social complexity concurrent with the elaboration of spectacular pieces of pure gold. The political nature of these first chiefdoms gave great importance to the exhibition of objects of prestige.
The metallic adornments that the chieftains wore required an enormous investment of work, and pieces were created to be splendid. During this era, which in general terms lasted from several centuries prior to and five or six hundred years into the our era, the populations in the south of the country also placed enormous emphasis on monumental statuary, networks of ceremonial pathways and also spectacular ceramics.
As the internal dynamics of development reached the southernmost parts of the country, the chiefdoms of the north developed their own gold work. Initially, northern societies - Muisca, Sinu, and Tairona - copied Quimbaya Classic pieces, the first culture to emphasize casting using the lost wax process. The reason the pieces copied from the Quimbaya Classic style were popular is not clear. ' Probably, trade played an important role. As we have seen, each community autonomously solved its basic needs by controlling different ecosystems. Thus, trade was directed not so much toward supplying goods basic for survival but rather toward providing communities with prestige items which were exhibited by chiefs and shamans to emphasize their status. Probably Quimbaya Classic adornments circulated to the chiefdoms in the north of the country where, eventually, they were copied by local artisans. This process does not imply that the different societies from the north of the country shared linguistic, ethnic, or cultural ties. with those of the south They were societies that participated in networks of exchange and for which the acquisition and, ideally, the production of metal adornments were important.